Discoveries in Where’d You Go, Bernadette carry a true joy

Sometimes the best of us can get lost without really identifying the when’s, why’s and how’s. That’s the point behind the very agreeable Where’d You Go, Bernadette, a lovely and loving piece of work directed by Richard Linklater from his screenplay co-written with Holly Gent (and very much driven by Maria Semple’s popular novel). We…

Don’t expect to laugh large for Downsizing

If you’ve seen the trailer for Downsizing, you might have been swept away by Matt Damon’s impish little smile at the thought of being swept away to a land of little people. Cute comedy? Sometimes. Damon has range as Paul Safranek, a middle-class, Middle America sort who toils to reach modest dreams with his wife…

New Ghostbusters won’t let you forget the original

Will this new Ghostbusters stand on its own? With the small-print tag line Answer the Call added to the famous sequel to the 1984 comedy blockbuster, that’s even more of a natural question. Could it? Some originals become so ingrained on a culture’s psyche over time that a sequel stands little chance. And No. 1,…

The Martian takes Matt Damon to lofty places

Left behind on Mars as dead, astronaut Mark Watney isn’t. And so, faced with scant food rations, among his many woes, the American astronaut goes botanist bonzai, using his wits and intelligence to come up with a way to grow a crop in, well, his own crap. That leads him to the second-best line of…